Breakwaters, Ancient and Modern—Origin and History of that at Cherbourg—Stones Sunk in Wooden Cones—Partial Failure of the Plan—Millions of Tons dropped to the Bottom—The Breakwater Temporarily Abandoned—Completed by Napoleon III.—A Port Bristling with Guns—Rennie’s Plymouth Breakwater—Ingenious Mode of Depositing the Stones—Lessons of the Sea—The Waves the Best Workmen—Completion of the Work—Grand Double Breakwater at Portland—The English Cherbourg—A Magnificent Piece of Engineering—Utilisation of Otherwise Worthless Stone—900 Convicts at Work—The Great Fortifications—The Verne—Gibraltar at Home—A Gigantic Fosse—Portland almost Impregnable—Breakwaters Elsewhere.
A breakwater, we are told on the highest authority, is an obstruction of wood, stone, or other material, as a boom or raft of wood, sunken vessels, &c., placed before the entrance of a port or harbour, or any projection from the land into the sea, as a mole, pier, or jetty, so situated as to break the force of the waves and prevent damage to shipping lying at anchor within them. Thus the piers of the ancient Piræus and of Rhodes; the moles of Venice, Naples, Genoa, and Castellamare; the piers of Ramsgate, Margate, Folkestone, Howth, and the famous wooden dike thrown across the port of Rochelle. The term, of late years, has been almost exclusively applied to insulated dikes of stone. Of this description of dike for creating an artificial harbour on a grand scale, Cherbourg, Plymouth, and Portland present leading examples. The former, already mentioned in this work, claims our attention.
The French, happily our good friends to-day, were not always so, and there was a period when the splendid natural harbours, bays, and roadsteads of this country were a source of annoyance to them. While nature had been more than kind to us, their coast presented a series of sandy shores, intermingled with iron-bound coasts, bristling with rocks. De Vauban, the great engineer, was employed by Louis, the Grand Monarque, to inspect the Channel shores of France, and his natural sagacity and great knowledge [pg 189]caused him at once to select Cherbourg as one of the best points for forming an artificial harbour, protected by suitable fortifications. Other engineers recommended the same port, and one, M. de la Bretonnière, proposed that a number of old ships should be loaded with stones and sunk, while a large quantity of stone should be also thrown around them to form a grand breakwater, which should rise fifty feet from the bottom. This idea was abandoned, as it appears, partly from the fact that France had not old vessels enough to spare for the purpose, and that it would cost too much to purchase them from foreign nations.
In 1781 an eminent French engineer proposed that, instead of one continuous breakwater, a number of large masses or congregations of stones, separated from each other on the surfaces but touching at the bases, should be built on the sea bottom, believing that they would break the force of the waves almost equally well. As a part of his plan he suggested that they should be sunk in large conical caissons of wood, 150 feet in diameter at the base and sixty feet broad at the top. These wooden cones were practically to bind and keep the stones together. They were to be floated to the site with a number of empty casks attached as floats, then detached, filled with stones, and sunk. An experiment at Havre having been considered satisfactory, the Government accepted the idea, and ordered that operations should be immediately commenced at Cherbourg. A permanent council was appointed, as were officers and engineers. In 1783 barracks and a navy-yard were built, and at Becquet, a short distance from Cherbourg, an artificial harbour, capable of holding eighty small vessels for the transport of the stone, was literally dug out.
On June 6th, 1784, the first cone was floated to its destination, and a month later a second was similarly conveyed, in the presence of 10,000 spectators. Before the latter could be filled with stones a storm, which lasted five days, half demolished it. In the course of the summer and autumn not less than 65,000 tons of stone were deposited in and around the cones. In 1785 several more cones were completed and sunk; at the end of the year the quantity of stone deposited amounted to a quarter of a million tons, and at the end of 1787 a million tons. At the end of 1790, when the works had been seven years in progress and the Government was getting very tired of the whole matter, between five and six million tons of stone had been dropped into the sea. M. de Cessart, the engineer, found that, in order to sink five cones per annum, he had to employ 250 carpenters, 30 blacksmiths, 200 stone-hewers, and 200 masons.
One could hardly expect much permanency from a wooden covering sunk into the sea, and it is not surprising that, one by one, they burst, few lasting more than a year. The outbreak of the Revolution put an end, for some time, to the operations at Cherbourg.
When the construction of the Cherbourg breakwater was resumed, the wooden cone system was abandoned, and the stone was simply sunk from vessels of peculiar construction. The breakwater was completed under Napoleon III., at a cost exceeding two and a half million pounds sterling. The actual breakwater itself was finished in 1853,61 but since [pg 190]that time most important fortifications have been constructed on the upper works. This is the greatest breakwater in the world, its length being nearly two and a half miles; it is 300 feet wide at the base and 31 at the top. The water-space shut in and protected is about 2,000 acres, much of this great area being, however, too shallow for very large vessels.
Taken in connection with the fortifications, this breakwater has a value greater than any other in the world. At the apex of the angle formed by the junction of the two branches of the breakwater there is a grand fort, and it bristles generally with batteries and forts, as indeed does Cherbourg generally. Dr. W. H. Russell wrote of it, in our leading journal in 1860 that, “Wherever you look you fancy that on the spot you occupy are specially pointed dozens of the dull black eyes from their rigid lids of stone.” With its twenty-four regular forts and redoubts, not including those on the mole, floating harbours, building slips, navy-yards, arsenals, and barracks, Cherbourg is a most formidable place.
In England Rennie’s great Plymouth breakwater is the most remarkable specimen, among many others. Its dimensions are not as great as that of Cherbourg, but it was, nevertheless, a vast undertaking. It consists of an immense number of blocks of stone thrown into the Sound, and forms a barrier nearly a mile in length above the surface of the water. This grand work was commenced in 1812, and by the end of the second year about 800 yards of the breakwater began to appear at low water, and the swell was so much broken that ships of all sizes began to take shelter behind it; while the fishermen within its shelter could not judge accurately of the weather outside the Sound, so great was the change. Several limestone quarries near the Catwater were purchased of the Duke of Bedford for £10,000, and some fifteen vessels were constantly employed in removing the blocks, which ranged in weight from one to ten tons. These vessels were of ingenious construction; they had two railways laid along them parallel to each other, with openings in the stern to admit the cars or trucks laden with stones. These were wheeled from the quarry to the quay, and so on to the vessels, till the lines of rails were filled with trucks. The vessels then proceeded to the works, each bearing its load of stone-laden trucks. On reaching the breakwater each truck was wheeled to the opening, and the stones tipped into the sea. During the first five years the amount of stone deposited gradually rose from 16,000 to 300,000 tons per annum. The large masses were first lowered, and then smaller stones, quarry rubbish, &c., to fill up the interstices. The structure was completed in 1841, with the use of 3,670,444 tons of stone62 and at a cost of something like a million and a half of money. A distinguished French engineer, M. Dupin, who visited the works during their progress, describes in glowing terms the admirable arrangements, the order and regularity visible in all the proceedings. “Those enormous masses of stone,” he remarks, “which the quarrymen strike with heavy strokes of their hammers; and those aerial roads of flying bridges, which serve for the removal of the superstratum of earth; those lines of cranes, all at work at the same moment; the trucks, all in motion; the arrival, the loading, and the departure of the vessels, all this forms one of the most imposing [pg 191]sights that can strike a friend to the great works of art. At fixed hours the sound of a bell is heard, in order to announce the blasting of the quarry. The operations instantly cease on all sides; all becomes silence and solitude. This universal silence renders still more imposing the noise of the explosion, the splitting of the rocks, their ponderous fall, and the prolonged sound of the echoes.”
“The waves,” said Rennie, “were the best workmen” in the construction of a breakwater of rough stones, and on the whole his belief was confirmed, for the storms by which his great work was assailed rather helped than hindered it, by showing the most desirable slope on the sea-side, while comparatively little damage was done. The slope of the stone barrier was, however, by their force changed very greatly. An inclination of three to one was altered to about five to one, and Rennie had recommended that the authorities should take a lesson from nature and finish the breakwater according to her teachings. “It would appear,” says Mr. Smiles,63 “that Mr. Whidbey, the resident engineer, contrived to finish most of the exterior face at a slope of only three to one, as before; and that it stood without any material interruption until several years after Mr. Rennie’s death. By that time nearly the whole of the intended rubble, amounting to 2,381,321 tons, had been deposited, and the main arm, with 200 yards of the west arm, making 1,241 yards in length, had been raised to the required level. The work had arrived at that stage when it had to experience the full force of another terrific storm, which took place on the 23rd of November, 1824. It blew at first from the south-south-east and then veered round to the south-west, and the effect of this concurrence of winds was to heap together the waters of the Channel between Bolt Head and Lizard Point, and drive them, with terrific force, into the narrow inlet of Plymouth Sound. This storm was not only greatly more violent, but of much longer duration than that of 1817. When the breakwater could be examined it was found that out of the 1,241 yards of the upper part, which had been completed with a slope of three to one, 796 yards had been altered as in the previous storm, and the immense blocks of stone which formed the seaface of the work had, by the force of the waves, been rolled over to the landward sides thus reducing the sea-slope, as before, to about five to one. The accuracy of Mr. Rennie’s view as to the proper slope—which was indicated by the action of the sea itself—was thus a second time confirmed;” and a board of eminent engineers reporting in accordance, the work was so finished. When the action of the sea had formed its own slope and had wedged together and settled the great mass of materials which form the breakwater, and when no further movement was apparent, but the whole appeared consolidated together, then the slope towards the sea was cased with regular courses of masonry, dove-tailed and cramped together, the diving-bell being brought into requisition for placing the lower courses. A lighthouse has been erected on its western extremity, and the work may be regarded as a magnificent success, worthy of a great maritime nation.
A third leading illustration of a magnificent breakwater is afforded at Portland, and it is deserving of particular mention inasmuch as all authorities agree that it was constructed with little or no waste of the public money. “In the mind of the inquiring tax-payer,” [pg 192]said our leading journal,64 “breakwaters are always associated with millions of money thrown broadcast into the sea, in out-of-the-way bays and inlets, which even without these obstacles to make them more dangerous, the most distressed mariner would be particularly careful to avoid;” and the writer goes on to mention several which either ought not to have been attempted, or where extravagant expenditure has been incurred. “In such a woeful list of hideous failure and costly mismanagement, it is a comfort to perceive that the long lane begins to turn at last, and that from our now having one good standard to go by, we may hope for better things for the future. Portland breakwater is a really grand and magnificent work, and one of which the nation may well be proud if it is inclined to let bygones be bygones, and forget the many successive failures before it was able to attain so much.” Portland breakwater is the right construction in the right place, and before its erection the Roads afforded doubtful shelter to vessels in distress. One advantage it enjoys, that of possessing a splendid anchorage of stiff blue clay, and being free from rock or shoal from the island of Portland itself up to the very esplanade of Weymouth. There, too, was the stone on the very spot; steep and rugged heights for fortifications, a noble harbour for shipping, and rail communication with all parts. But all these advantages might have been ignored but for the formidable nature of the works constructed at Cherbourg. The port itself is about five hours’ steaming from the French Cronstadt it was designed, sub rosâ, to keep an eye upon. So, in 1844, the commissioners recommended that it should [pg 193]be made a grand fortified naval station. In 1847 an Act was passed authorising the construction of a breakwater, and in 1849 the foundation-stone was laid by the Prince Consort.
Nature has provided, in the mighty bank known as the Chesil Beach, practically a great shingle embankment, protection to Portland Harbour on the west and south-west, and the object of the breakwater was to secure, by engineering art, a similar protection to the bay on the south-east side. The Chesil Bank, though now and for long perfectly impregnable to the tremendous rollers of the south-westerly gales, was not always so, and as late as the reign of Henry VIII, great breaches had been temporarily effected by the power of the sea. Still it affords a splendid protection, as does now the mighty double breakwater designed by Rendel, and brought to completion by Coode. The breakwater leaves the shore at the north-eastern extremity of the island, and runs out due east to a distance of 600 yards. “This inner limb alone,” wrote an authority in engineering,65 “is a splendid achievement of human labour and skill. It has been top-finished by a grand superstructure of hewn granite, and ends in a circular head, which has been completed as a fort and mounts eight guns. The foundations of this massive bastion have been most carefully planned, with especial reference to the safe passage of the largest vessels through the 400 feet gap which the fort flanks on one side. The masonry is continued in a perpendicular line to a point 25 feet [pg 194]below the lowest water-line of spring-tides. A ship of the line, as is well-known, draws at the utmost 24 feet. An extra foot of perpendicular masonry, therefore, having been allowed, the lower masses of the fort begin to slant outwards, and continue to do so till they reach the firm clay bottom. This lower portion consists of a well-consolidated mass of unhewn stone. The outer, and by far the longer limb, of the breakwater begins to bend away to a point very near due north shortly after leaving the gap, the further side of which is also flanked by a circular head.... The whole of this vast outer limb, with the exception of the circular head at its inner extremity and a fort at the other end, consists of nothing more than a stupendous bank of rough unhewn stones of all shapes and sizes, tumbled out of the wagons on the timber staging above. Divers, constantly employed, have effectually prevented the chance of any holes being left in the rising mass, and have been able to indicate the precise spot over which a given number of loads were required to be ‘tipped.’ The security of the bank is further guaranteed by its enormous width at the base; and although the waves have already rounded many a giant block below the water-line and made it look as if its present place had been its abode ever since the Creation, yet this polishing and grinding is the extent of the effect which they will be able to produce upon a work probably destined to hold its own as long as Portland itself.”
The rapidity with which the breakwater was constructed reflected great credit on Mr. Coode. The actual routine of the construction followed, when the line for the structure had been sounded and carefully marked out, was to commence piling for the railway that was to carry the long trains of wagons filled with the stone; and when a short piece of this was completed, to go on “tipping in” the rubble and rough stone till they made their appearance above water at last; then the piling was carried forward a few yards more, and the process repeated, and so on by successive stages to the completion of the work. All appears very simple on paper until we learn that it had to be accomplished through eleven fathoms of rough tumbling waves. One night’s rough weather often swept away the timber-work that cost many thousands of pounds, and many months of labour to construct and fix in its position in the sea. The piling that had to resist the action of a deep and heavy sea, and to carry also, at a height of 90 feet, a railway for the heaviest traffic, required to be something more than a common framework of timber. Every log used had to be first of all saturated to its very centre with creosote, and this was done in a most ingenious manner. A great boiler, 100 feet long and 7 feet in diameter, was filled with the largest and finest logs procurable; the mouth being closed with a solid air-tight cover, the air was pumped out, not only from the tube, but from the very pores of the wood itself. When the vacuum was as complete as possible, the creosote was admitted from tanks at the bottom and forced into the timber by hydraulic power of about 300 lbs. to the square inch. In this the logs remained for two or three days, by which time the creosote was forced into the fibre of the wood. Several of the logs thus prepared were bolted and bound together, till one huge spar 90 feet long, and eight or nine tons in weight, was formed. Then an iron “Mitchell” screw—as used in the lighthouses built on sands, already described—was affixed at the lower end, and the whole sunk till it rested on the bottom, when it was worked round by a capstan till it was firmly screwed into the clay. Thus secured, they were tolerably safe, though single heavy waves would uproot piles and moorings together, to obviate which [pg 195]two or three piles were generally set at the same time, and well bound together by powerful cross timbers.
The stone quarried for the breakwater from the very top of Portland Island was largely excavated and brought to the spot by convict labour. The stone itself used was unfit for architectural purposes, but quite suitable for the breakwater. The convict prison, also on the top of the island, was virtually the barracks for 900 labourers, who were more profitably employed than in walking a treadmill or picking oakum. The quarries were some 400 or 500 feet above the level of the breakwater, and the stone was conveyed to it by three inclines of broad double gauge rails. The trains of trucks or wagons were worked up and down with a wire rope over a drum, the weight of the loaded descending wagons winding the empty ones up again to the quarries. A powerful locomotive pushed the loaded trains to the end of the work, where the stone was tipped into the sea, as much as 3,000 tons a day having been sunk at Portland. The total amount so committed to the deep was about 5,360,000 tons, and the area protected by the breakwater would accommodate sixty of the very largest men-of-war, and almost any number of smaller vessels.
“During the progress of the works,” wrote Mr. Moule, “the engineer has from time to time instituted some highly interesting investigations into the structure of the Chesil Bank.... During a single night’s gale, between three and four millions of tons weight of pebbles have been found to be swept away into the gulfs of the Atlantic, being gradually thrown back again in the three or four following days. The size of the pebbles had long been observed to vary greatly at the two opposite ends of the beach. At the western, or Abbotsbury end, they are exceedingly small, more resembling gravel than shingle. At the Portland end it is not uncommon to meet with them several inches in diameter, and several pounds in weight. This phenomenon has been explained by the very probable assumption that the pebbles are driven eastward by the wind-waves, and not moved by the slow and (for purposes like this) powerless tidal current. The larger pebbles, presenting a broad surface to the waves, are easily rolled forward, while the smaller ones are passed by, offering a less surface, and becoming more easily imbedded in the sand.” It is said that a practised smuggler on that coast could tell his whereabouts on the bank in the darkest night or thickest fog, by feeling the size of the pebbles on which he stood. And smugglers and “wreckers” were once very numerous among the Portlanders. In these better days their courage and great personal strength has saved many a life and ship endangered off the bank.
An old and popular song says that—
but recent legislators have evidently not been so thoroughly satisfied of the fact, or they would not have authorised the construction of the great fortifications at Portland, which make it almost the Gibraltar of the Channel. The splendid breakwater there did not need protection. All the battering it is ever likely to get could not injure it seriously, and whatever ruins Macaulay’s New Zealander may stand upon, they are not likely to be those of a great breakwater, each year of the existence of which renders it generally more compact. But it was for good reasons that the extensive works of Portland were undertaken. “We,” said the Times, “of [pg 196]all people in the world, who so toiled and suffered, lavishing blood and treasure under the walls of Sebastopol, should be the last to underrate the importance of a good fortification as a check to an invading army.” The reader will hardly require any defence of such policy, for naval arsenals contain the very germ of our power, as the iron safe of the prudent man contains his valuables.
The Bill of Portland greatly resembles the situation of Gibraltar. There are the same bold, steep, rocky headlands; the breakwater stands in place of the Mole, and Chesil Bank connects it with the mainland, as the neutral ground does our great Mediterranean citadel with Spanish soil. “Its height, its isolation, and the harbour it commands, all pointed it out as a place for an impregnable—we had almost said an inaccessible—fortress. To the late Prince Consort is due the credit of having seen its vast importance in this respect, as it was also owing to his enlightened judgment that the breakwater was begun at last, and he himself laid the foundation-stone. Portland is rising, as we have said, into a first-class fortress, of which the Verne is the great key or citadel.” So spoke the Times, in 1863; and now Portland is the best fortified port and naval station in the kingdom.
The Verne is a height which, like La Roche at Cherbourg, dominates over all around it for miles, especially on the side which overlooks the breakwater and the sea. On the north side it is protected by nearly perpendicular cliffs; elsewhere it is fully protected by art. One of its greatest defences is the dry ditch which completely encircles the whole work, except on the north side just mentioned, where it is both unnecessary and impossible. This ditch is one of the greatest ever undertaken in ancient or modern days. Its depth is 80 feet, and its width 100, and in some places 200 feet; its length is nearly a mile, and its floor is 368 feet up the hill-side. Nearly two million tons of stone had to be blasted to form it; and it would never have been excavated on the colossal scale indicated, but that all the said stone was utilised in building the breakwater. With this tremendous artificial ravine to [pg 197]cross, with fortifications and bastions fully prepared with heavy Armstrong ordnance towering above, what enemy is ever likely to attack the citadel of the Verne? Our leading journal spoke of it as more compact than Cherbourg, Cronstadt, or Sebastopol, while it is more than three times their elevation above the sea.
Jutting out from the main fortress are two bastionettes, one of which has eight faces, mounting guns on each so as to sweep with a murderous fire two-thirds of the whole length of the fosse or ditch. The other is nearly as formidable, and both are pierced with loop-holes in all directions for the fire of riflemen. The great barracks in the enclosure of the Verne can, at a pinch, accommodate 10,000 men, the peace garrison being about a third of that number. The arrangements for water supply are perfect, great reserve tanks having been cut from the solid rock, and covered with shot-proof roofs. These are kept full, and, protected from air and light; the water is always sweet. Portland bristles with batteries; but the Verne commands everything in range of cannon, inside or outside the breakwater, including all parts of the island, and can cross fire with other important forts. It is probably the strongest fortified harbour in the world.
Other and important breakwaters, like that of Holyhead, which cost a couple of million sterling, and which is generally cited as an example of much money thrown into the sea; Alderney, which has swallowed up close on three-fourths of the above sum; and Dover, which has a fine vertical sea-wall, might be mentioned. Enough has been said to show the general importance of the subject to a maritime people, and that, on the whole, England has been fully alive to the fact. Indeed, counting large and small breakwaters and sea-walls, more has been expended in this country for these works than in any two or three foreign countries possessing sea-boards.
The Dangers of the Seas—England’s Interest in the Matter—The Shipping and Docks of London and Liverpool—The Goodwin Sands and their History—The “Hovellers”—The Great Gale of 1703—Defoe’s Graphic Account—Thirteen Vessels of the Royal Navy Lost—Accounts of Eye-witnesses—The Storm Universal over England—Great Damage and Loss of Life at Bristol—Plymouth—Portsmouth—Vessels Driven to Holland—At the Spurn Light—Inhumanity of Deal Townsmen—A worthy Mayor Saves 200 Lives—The Damage in the Thames—Vessels Drifting in all Directions—800 Boats Lost—Loss of Life on the River—On Shore—Remarkable Escapes and Casualties—London in a Condition of Wreck—Great Damage to Churches—A Bishop and his Lady Killed—A Remarkable Water-Spout—Total Losses Fearful.
“The dangers of the seas” are little enough to some countries, but to England they mean much indeed. Think of the maritime interests of the port of London, the docks of which cover considerably over 300 acres of water-space, and to which 7,000 or more vessels enter annually. Over 100 vessels, exclusive of small craft, enter the port daily; its exports form nearly one-fourth of the total exports of the United Kingdom. Liverpool in some maritime interests excels it. This, the second largest city in Great Britain, had, as late [pg 198]as 1697, a population of only 5,000; 80 small vessels then belonged to the port. In this year of grace, Liverpool, with her virtual suburbs, Birkenhead and West Derby, has a population considerably over 700,000. In 1872, Liverpool exported, in British and Irish productions, a total value of £100,066,410, which meant little short of forty per cent. of the total exports, of the same kind, from the United Kingdom, while its imports of many staples exceeded those of London. Liverpool has nearly sixty docks and basins, extending along the Mersey for five miles. She possesses nineteen miles of quays, nearly the whole of which have been built since 1812, and warehouses on a scale of magnificence unknown elsewhere.
But such a commerce means much more. Hundreds of thousands of hardy men risk their lives that we may have bread and butter, sugar with our tea, and all the necessaries and luxuries of modern civilised life. England has not forgotten them, and for their use has built the lighthouse, the breakwater, and the harbour of refuge. But there are sources of danger which nearly defy human power. Take, among all dangerous shoals and sands, the Goodwin Sands as a prominent example; they are replete with danger to all sailing vessels at least, resorting to the Thames or to the North Sea, while even steamships have been lost on their treacherous banks.
These Sands, so well known to, and feared by, the mariner, are ten miles in length, running in a north-east and south-west direction off the east coast of Kent. They are divided into two portions by a narrow channel, and parts are uncovered at low water. When the tide recedes, the sand is firm and safe, but when the sea permeates it, the mass becomes pulpy, treacherous, and constantly shifting. Three light-vessels (one seven miles from Ramsgate) mark the most dangerous points, and these are themselves exposed to a considerable amount of danger. The only advantage derived from the existence of the Sands is that they form a kind of breakwater, securing a safe anchorage in the roadsteads of the Downs. But if the wind blows strongly off shore, let the mariner beware!
The ancients thought that Britain was distinguished from all the world by unpassable seas and northern winds. The shores of Albion were dreadful to sailors, and our island was for a time regarded as the utmost bounds of the northern known land, beyond which none had ever sailed.
These dangerous Goodwin Sands, if we may believe the chronicles, and there seems no reason why we should not, consisted at one time of about 4,000 acres of low coast land, fenced from the sea by a wall. One tradition, not usually credited, ascribes their present state to the erection of the Tenterden Steeple, by which the funds which should have maintained the sea-wall were diverted. An old authority, Lambard, says, “Whatsoever old wives tell of Goodwyne, Earle of Kent, in tyme of Edward the Confessour, and his sandes, it appeareth by Hector Boëtius, the Brittish chronicler, that theise sandes weare mayne land, and some tyme of the possession of Earl Goodwyne, and by a great inundation of the sea, they weare taken therefroe, at which tyme also much harme was done in Scotland and Flanders, by the same rage of the water.” At the period of the Conquest, these lands were taken from Earl Goodwin and bestowed on the abbey of St. Augustine, Canterbury, and some accounts say that the Abbot allowed the sea-wall to become dilapidated, and that in the year 1100 the waves rushed in and overwhelmed the whole. The inroads of the sea in many parts of the world would account for anything of the kind.
[pg 199]In dangerous or foggy weather, bells are constantly sounded from the light-ships. A considerable amount of difficulty is experienced in finding proper anchorage for these vessels; and all efforts to establish a fixed beacon have been hitherto unsuccessful. In 1846 a lighthouse on piles screwed into the sands66 was erected, but it was carried away the following year by the force of the waves. As soon as a vessel is known to have been driven on the Goodwins, rockets are thrown up from the light-ships, and as soon as recognised on shore a number of boatmen, known as “hovellers,” all over that portion of the coast, immediately launch their boats, and make for the Sands, whatever may be the weather. The “hovellers” look upon the wreck itself as in part their property, and make a good deal of money at times, leading, as a rule, a thoroughly reckless sailor’s life ashore. But how many poor seamen have had cause to bless their bravery and intrepidity!
The great gale of 1703, one of the most terrible, if not absolutely the most terrible which has ever visited our coasts, occasioned the loss of thirteen vessels of the Royal Navy, four on the Goodwin Sands, one in the Yarmouth Roads, one at the Nore, and the rest at various points on the coasts of England and Holland. The record, as preserved by the immortal author of “Robinson Crusoe,” is terribly concise in its details. Take a part only of it. The italics are our own.
“Reserve, fourth-rate; 54 guns; 258 men. John Anderson, com. Lost in Yarmouth Roads. The captain, purser, master, chyrurgeon, clerk, and 16 men were ashore; the rest drowned.
“Northumberland, third-rate; 70 guns; 253 men. James Greenway, com. Lost on Goodwin Sands. All their men lost.
“Restoration, third-rate; 70 guns; 386 men. Fleetwood Emes, com. Lost on Goodwin Sands. All their men lost.
“Sterling Castle, third-rate; 70 guns; 349 men. John Johnson, com. Lost on Goodwin Sands. Third lieutenant, chaplain, cook, chyrurgeon’s mate, four marine captains, and 62 men saved.
“Mary, fourth-rate; 64 guns; 273 men. Rear-Admiral Beaumont, Edward Hopson, com. Lost on Goodwin Sands. Only one man saved, by swimming from wreck to wreck, and getting to the Sterling Castle; the captain ashore, as also the purser.” And so the sad story proceeds, Defoe adding that the loss of small vessels hired into the service, and tending the fleet, is not included, several such vessels, with soldiers on board, being driven to sea, and never heard of more.67
A master on board a vessel which was blown “out of the Downs to Norway,” describes the sights he saw on those fatal days, the 25th and 26th of November, in homely but graphic language. He says: “By four o’clock we miss’d the Mary and the Northumberland, who rid not far from us, and found they were driven from their anchors; but what became of them, God knows. And soon after, a large man-of-war came driving down upon us, all her masts gone, and in a dreadful condition. We were in the utmost despair at this [pg 201]sight, for we saw no avoiding her coming thwart our haiser; she drove at last so near us, that I was just gowing to order the mate to cut away, when it pleas’d God the ship sheer’d contrary to our expectation to windward, and the man-of-war, which we found to be the Sterling Castle, drove clear of us, not two ships’ lengths, to leeward.
“It was a sight full of terrible particulars to see a ship of eighty guns (sic) and about six hundred men68 in that dismal case. She had cut away all her masts; the men were all in the confusion of death and despair; she had neither anchor, nor cable, nor boat to help her, the sea breaking over her in a terrible manner, that sometimes she seem’d all under water. And they knew, as well as we that saw her, that they drove by the tempest directly for the Goodwin, where they could expect nothing but destruction. The cries of the men, and the firing their guns, one by one, every half minute for help, terrified us in such a manner, that I think we were half dead with the horror of it.” The same writer describes the collision of two vessels, which he saw sink together, and several great ships fast aground and beating to pieces. “One,” says he, “we saw founder before our eyes, and all the people perish’d.”
“We have,” says Defoe, “an abundance of strange accounts from other parts, and particularly the following letter from the Downs, and though every circumstance in this letter is not literally true, as to the number of ships or lives lost, and the style coarse and sailor-like, yet I have inserted this letter, because it seems to describe the horror and consternation the poor sailors were in at that time; and because this is written from one who was as near an eye-witness as any could possibly be, and be safe.
“ ‘Sir,—These lines I hope in God will find you in good health. We are all left here in a dismal condition, expecting every moment to be all drowned; for here is a great storm, and is very likely to continue. We have here the Rear-Admiral of the Blue in the ship called the Mary, a third-rate, the very next ship to ours, sunk, with Admiral Beaumont, and above 500 men drowned; the ship called the Northumberland, a third-rate, about 500 men, all sunk and drowned; the ship called the Sterling Castle, a third-rate, all sunk and drowned, above 500 souls; and the ship called the Restoration, a third-rate, all sunk and drowned. These ships were all close by us, which I saw. These ships fired their guns all night and day long, poor souls, for help, but the storm being so fierce and raging, could have none to save them. The ship called the Shrewsbury, that we are in, broke two anchors, and did run mighty fierce backwards, within sixty or eighty yards of the Sands, and as God Almighty would have it, we flung our sheet-anchor down, which is the biggest, and so stopt; here we all prayed God to forgive us our sins, and to save us, or else to receive us into his heavenly Kingdom. If our sheet-anchor had given way, we had been all drowned; but I humbly thank God, it was his gracious mercy that saved us. There’s one, Captain Fanel’s ship, three hospital ships, all split, some sunk, and most of the men drowned.
“ ‘There are above forty merchant ships cast away and sunk; to see Admiral Beaumont, that was next us, and all the rest of his men, how they climbed up the main-mast, hundreds [pg 202]at a time crying out for help, and thinking to save their lives, and in the twinkling of an eye were drowned; I can give you no account, but of these four men-of-war aforesaid, which I saw with my own eyes, and those hospital ships, at present, by reason the storm hath drove us far distant from one another; Captain Crow, of our ship, believes we have lost several more ships of war, by reason we see so few; we lie here in great danger, and waiting for a north-easterly wind to bring us to Portsmouth, and it is our prayer to God for it; for we know not how soon this storm may arise, and cut us all off, for it is a dismal place to anchor in. I have not had my clothes off, nor a wink of sleep these four nights, and have got my death with cold almost.—Yours to command,
The following is also a characteristic letter from Captain Soanes of H.M.S. Dolphin, then at Milford Haven, showing also how far the storm extended on our coasts:—
“Sir,—Reading the advertisement in the Gazette of your intending to print the many sad accidents in the late dreadful storm, induced me to let you know what this place felt, though a very good harbour. Her Majesty’s ships the Cumberland, Coventry, Loo, Hastings, and Hector, being under my command, with the Rye, a cruiser on this station, and under our convoy, about 130 merchant ships bound about land; the 26th of November, at one in the afternoon, the wind came at S. by E. a hard gale, between which and N.W. by W. it came to a dreadful storm; at three the next morning was the violentest of the weather, when the Cumberland broke her sheet-anchor, the ship driving near this, and the Rye both narrowly escap’d carrying away; she drove very near the rocks, having but one anchor left, but in a little time they slung a gun, with the broken anchor fast to it, which they let go, and wonderfully preserved the ship from the shore. Guns firing from one ship or other all the night for help, though ’twas impossible to assist each other, the sea was so high, and the darkness of the night such, that we could not see where any one was, but by the flashes of the guns; when daylight appeared, it was a dismal sight to behold the ships driving up and down, one foul of another, without masts, some sunk, and others upon the rocks, the wind blowing so hard, with thunder, lightning, and rain, that on the deck a man could not stand without holding. Some drove from Dale, where they were sheltered under the land, and split in pieces, the men all drowned; two others drove out of a creek, one on the shore so high up was saved; the other on the rocks in another creek, and bulged; an Irish ship that lay with a rock through her, was lifted by the sea clear away to the other side of the creek on a safe place; one ship forced ten miles up the river before she could be stopped, and several strangely blown into holes, and on banks; a ketch, of Pembroke, was drove on the rocks, the two men and a boy in her had no boat to save their lives, but in this great distress a boat which broke from another ship drove by them, without any in her, the two men leaped into her and were saved, but the boy was drowned. A prize at Pembroke was lifted on the bridge, whereon is a mill, which the water blew up, but the vessel got off again; another vessel carried almost into the gateway which leads to the [pg 203]bridge, and is a road, the tide flowing several feet above the common course. The storm continued till the 27th, about three in the afternoon; that by computation nigh thirty merchant ships and vessels without masts are lost, and what men are lost is not known; three ships are missing, that we suppose men and all lost. None of her Majesty’s ships came to any harm; but the Cumberland breaking her anchor in a storm which happen’d the 18th at night, lost another, which renders her incapable of proceeding with us till supplied. I saw several trees and houses which are blown down.—Your humble servant,
The disasters caused by this terrible gale extended over the English coasts. At Bristol the tide filled the merchants’ cellars, spoiling 1,000 hogsheads of sugar, 1,500 hogsheads of tobacco, and any quantity of other produce, the damage being estimated at £100,000. Eighty people were drowned in the marshes and river. Among the shipping casualties, the Canterbury store-ship went ashore, and twenty-five men were drowned from her. The Severn overflowed the country, doing great damage at Gloucester; and 15,000 sheep were drowned on the levels and marshes. Four merchant ships were lost in Plymouth Roads, and most of the men were drowned. At Portsmouth a number of vessels were blown to sea, and some of them never heard of more. About a dozen ships were driven from our coasts to Holland, the crews, for the most part, being saved. At Dunkirk, twenty-three or more vessels were dashed to pieces against the pier-head.
Mr. Peter Walls, master or chief lighthouse-keeper of the Spurn Light at the mouth of the Humber, was present on the 26th of November, the fatal night of the storm. He thought that his lighthouse must have been blown down, and the tempest made the fire in it burn so fiercely that “it melted down the iron bars, on which it laid, like lead,” so that they were obliged when the fire was nearly extinguished to put in fresh bars, and re-kindle the fire, keeping it up till the morning dawn, when they found that some six or seven-and-twenty sail of ships were driving helplessly about the Spurn Head, some having cut, and others broken their cables. These were a part of two fleets then lying in the Humber, having put in there by stress of weather a day or two before. Three ships were driven on an island called the Don. The first no sooner touched bottom than she completely capsized, turning keel up; strange to say, out of six men on board, only one was drowned, the other five being rescued by the boat of the second ship. They landed at the Spurn Lighthouse, where Mr. Walls got them good fires and all the comforts they needed. The second ship, having nobody on board, was driven to sea and never seen or heard of more. The third broke up, and next morning some coals that had been in her were all that was to be seen. Of the whole number of vessels in the Humber, few, if any, were saved.
Defoe estimates that 150 sea-going vessels of all sorts were lost in this terrific gale; but this is, in all probability, a very low estimate. And it is as nothing to the fearful loss of life, which amounted to 8,000 souls.
The townspeople of Deal, in particular, were blamed for their inhumanity in leaving many to their fate who could have been rescued. Boatmen went off to the sands for booty, some of whom would not listen to poor wretches who might have been saved. Many unfortunate shipwrecked persons could be seen, by the aid of glasses, walking on the Goodwin [pg 204]Sands in despairing postures, knowing that they would, as Defoe puts it, “be washed into another world” at the reflux of the tide. The Mayor of Deal, Mr. Thomas Powell, asked the Custom House officers to take out their boats and endeavour to save the lives of some of these unfortunates, but they utterly refused. The mayor then offered, from his own pocket, five shillings a head for all saved, and a number of fishermen and others volunteered, and succeeded in bringing 200 persons on shore, who would have been lost in half an hour afterwards. The Queen’s agent for sick and wounded seamen would not furnish a penny for their lodging or food, and the good mayor supplied all of them with what they required. Several died, and he was compelled to bury them at his own expense; he furnished a large number with money to pay their way to London. He received no thanks from the Government of the day, but some long time after was re-imbursed the large sums he had expended.
“Nor,” says Defoe, “can the damage suffered in the river of Thames be forgot. It was a strange sight to see all the ships in the river blown away, the Pool was so clear, that, as I remember, not above four ships were left between the upper part of Wapping and Ratcliffe Cross, for the tide being up at the time when the storm blew with the greatest violence, no anchors or landfast, no cables or moorings, would hold them, the chains which lay across the river for the mooring of ships, all gave way.
“The ships breaking loose thus, it must be a strange sight to see the hurry and confusion of it; and, as some ships had nobody at all on board, and a great many had none but a man or boy just to look after the vessel, there was nothing to be done but to let every vessel drive whither and how she would.
“Those who know the reaches of the river, and how they lie, know well enough that the wind being at south-west-westerly, the vessels would naturally drive into the bite [pg 205]or bay from Ratcliffe Cross to Limehouse Hole, for that the river winding about again from thence towards the new dock at Deptford runs almost due south-west, so that the wind blew down one reach and up another, and the ships must of necessity drive into the bottom of the angle between both.
“This was the case, and as the place is not large, and the number of ships very great, the force of the wind had driven them so into one another, and laid them so upon one another, as it were in heaps, that I think a man may safely defy all the world to do the like.
“The author of this collection had the curiosity the next day to view the place, and to observe the posture they lay in, which nevertheless it is impossible to describe; there lay, by the best account he could take, few less than seven hundred sail of ships, some very great ones, between Shadwell and Limehouse inclusive; the posture is not to be imagined but by them that saw it; some vessels lay heeling off with the bow of another ship over her waist, and the stern of another upon her forecastle; the boltsprits of some drove into the cabin-windows of others; some lay with their sterns tossed up so high that the tide flowed into their forecastles before they could come to rights; some lay so leaning upon others that the undermost vessels would sink before the other could float; the numbers of masts, boltsprits and yards split and broke, the staving the heads and sterns, [pg 206]and carved work, the tearing and destruction of rigging, and the squeezing of boats to pieces between the ships, is not to be reckoned; but there was hardly a vessel to be seen that had not suffered some damage or other in one or all of these articles.
“There were several vessels sunk in this hurricane, but as they were generally light ships the damage was chiefly to the vessels; but there were two ships sunk with great quantity of goods on board: the Russell galley was sunk at Limehouse, being a great part laden with bale goods for the Straits; and the Sarah galley, laden for Leghorn, sunk at an anchor at Blackwall, and though she was afterwards weighed and brought on shore, yet her back was broken, or so otherwise disabled that she was never fit for the sea. There were several men drowned in these last two vessels, but we could never come to have the particular number.
“Near Gravesend several ships drove on shore below Tilbury Fort, and among them five bound for the West Indies; but as the shore is oozy and soft, the vessels sat upright and easy.” The loss of small craft in the river was enormous; not less than 300 ships’ boats and 500 wherries were sunk or dashed to pieces. Barges and lighters were sunk and broke loose by the score, and twenty-two watermen and others working on the river were drowned.
The effect of this tempest was felt very severely on shore, not less than 123 persons being killed by falling buildings, &c. It is said that not less than 800 dwellings were blown down, while barns, stacks of chimneys, pinnacles, steeples, and trees, were strewed all over the country.
Dozens of remarkable cases might be given of wonderful preservations at sea during this storm, and one or two have been cited. A small vessel ran on the rocks in Milford Haven and was fast breaking up, when an empty boat, which had got loose, drifted past so near the wreck that two men jumped into it and saved their lives. A poor boy on board could not jump so far, and was drowned. A poor sailor of Brighthelmston was taken off a wreck after he had hung by his hands and feet on the top of a mast for eight-and-forty hours, the sea raging so high that no boat durst approach him. A waterman in the river Thames, lying asleep in the cabin of a barge near Blackfriars, was driven below London Bridge, “and the barge went of herself into the Tower Dock, and lay safe on shore. The man never waked nor heard the storm till it was day; and, to his great astonishment, he found himself safe, as above.” Two boys, lodging in the Poultry, and living in a top garret, were, by the fall of chimneys, which broke through the floors, carried quite to the bottom of the cellar, and received no hurt at all.
It has been shown how universal was the storm on the English coasts, and it extended to all parts of the interior.70 In Norfolk, a small town experienced the horrors [pg 207]of fire simultaneously with the gale. The inhabitants were powerless to extinguish it; and the wind blew the ruins, almost as much as the fire, in all directions. If the people came to windward they were in danger of being blown into the flames, and to leeward they dared not approach the fire, which would have scorched them up. Those who escaped the conflagration ran the imminent risk of being knocked on the head by bricks and tiles, which flew about as though they were tinder. The storm, although most severe on the Friday before-mentioned, lasted almost continuously for a week.
The city of London was a strange spectacle at this time. “The houses looked like skeletons,” says Defoe, “and an universal air of horror seemed to sit on the countenances of the people. All business seemed to be laid aside for the time, and people were generally intent upon getting help to repair their habitations.” The streets lay covered with tiles and slates, bricks and chimney-pots. Common tiles rose from 21s. per thousand to £6. Above 2,000 great stacks of chimneys were blown down in and about London, besides gable-ends and roofs by the score, and about twenty whole houses in the suburbs. In addition to those killed by the fall of various parts of buildings, above 200 were reported as wounded and maimed. And it must be remembered that these were not the days of morning and evening and special editions, and copious and generally correct reports. Had telegraphs and railways and steamships brought in the news collected by innumerable correspondents, as they would to-day, Defoe’s book would never have been compiled. And it may be here observed, in honour of the memory of that immortal author, that he never cites a case, or speaks of it as a positive fact, without giving his authority or authorities. He says in one place, “Some of our printed accounts give us larger and plainer accounts of the loss of lives than I will venture to affirm for truth: as of several houses near Moorfields levelled with the ground; fourteen people drowned in a wherry going to Gravesend and five in a wherry from Chelsea. Not that it is not very probable to be true, but, as I resolve not to hand anything to posterity but what comes very well attested, I omit such relations as I have not extraordinary assurance as to the fact.” This is hardly the way with all book-makers!
Most of those killed were buried or crushed by the broken fragments and rubbish of falling stacks of chimneys or walls. The fall of brick walls made a serious item in the losses. At Greenwich Park several pieces of the wall were down for a hundred rods at a place; the palace of St. James’s was greatly damaged; the roof of the guard-house at Whitehall blown off, seriously hurting nine soldiers; the lead stripped off and rolled up like parchment from scores of churches and public buildings, including Westminster Abbey and Christ Church Hospital. “It was very remarkable,” Defoe notes, “that the bridge over the Thames [i.e., Old London Bridge] received so little damage, the buildings standing high and not sheltered by other erections, as they would be in the streets. Above a hundred elms, some of them said to have been planted by Wolsey, were blown down in St. James’s Park. Very fortunately the storm was succeeded by fine weather: for had rain or snow followed, the misery and damage to hundreds and hundreds of tenants would have been fearfully increased.”
At Stowmarket, in Suffolk, one of the largest spires—100 feet high above the steeple—was completely carried away, with all its heavy timbers and an immense quantity [pg 208]of lead. So in Brenchly and Great Peckham, Kent, the former doing damage to the church and porch as it fell, and entailing a total loss of £800 to £1,000, which would represent much more in these days. “The cathedral church of Ely,” said one of Defoe’s correspondents, “by the providence of God, did, contrary to all men’s expectations, stand out the shock, but suffered very much in every part of it, especially that which is called the body of it, the lead being torn and rent up a considerable way together; about 40 lights of glass blown down and shattered to pieces; one ornamental pinnacle, belonging to the north aisle, demolished; and the lead in divers other parts of it blown up into great heaps. Five chimneys falling down in a place called the Colledge, the place where the prebendaries’ lodgings are, did no other damage (prais’d be God!) than beat down some part of the houses along with them. The loss which the church and college of Ely sustained being, by computation, near £2,000.” Accounts of nearly irretrievable damage done to valuable painted church windows, for one of which—at Fairford, Gloucester—£1,500 had been offered, came from many points. In some cases the lead blown from roofs, amounting to tons in weight, was so tightly rolled up that it took a number of men to unroll it without cutting or other damage.
The Bishop of Bath and Wells was killed under rather remarkable circumstances. The palace was the relic of a very old castle, only one corner of it being modernised for his lordship’s use. Had the bishop slept in the new portion his life would have been spared; but he remained in one of the older apartments. Two chimney-stacks fell and crushed in the roof, driving it upon the bishop’s bed, forcing it quite through the next floor into the hall, and burying both himself and lady in the rubbish. The former appears to have risen, perhaps perceiving the approaching danger, and was found, with his brains dashed out, near a doorway.
One of the most remarkable cases of the power of the wind ashore was the removal of a stone of four hundredweight, which lay sheltered under a bank, to a distance of seven yards. On the Kingscote estate, in Gloucester, 600 trees, all about eighty feet in height, were thrown down within a compass of five acres. The storm was accompanied by thunder and lightning and waterspouts. A clergyman, writing from Besselsleigh, says:—“On Friday, the 26th of November, in the afternoon, about four of the clock, a country fellow came running to me, in a great fright, and very earnestly entreated me to go and see a pillar, as he called it, in the air in a field hard by. I went with the fellow, and when I came found it to be a spout marching directly with the wind; and I can think of nothing I can compare it to better than the trunk of an elephant, which it resembled—only much bigger. It was extended to a great length, and swept the ground as it went, leaving a mark behind. It crossed a field, and, which was very strange (and which I should scarce have been induced to believe had I not myself seen it, besides several countrymen, who were astonished at it, meeting with an oak that stood towards the middle of the field, snapped the body of it asunder. Afterwards, crossing a road, it sucked up the water that was in the cart-ruts. Then, coming to an old barn, it tumbled it down, and the thatch that was on the top was carried about by the wind, which was then very high and in great confusion. After this I followed it no farther, and therefore saw no more of it, but a parishioner of mine, going from hence to Hincksey, in a field [pg 209]about a quarter of a mile off of this place, was on the sudden knocked down and lay upon the place till some people came by and brought him home; and he is not yet quite recovered.” An earthquake is also said to have followed the great storm.
Enough has now been written to show how universal were the effects of this terrible gale. The details, as recorded by Defoe and others, would fill several chapters like the present. The author of “Robinson Crusoe” puts, as we have seen, the loss of life partly on land but principally by sea, at 8,000, but a French authority places it at the enormous number of 30,000! It can well be believed that a large proportion of the casualties were never reported or recorded.